In response to Paul Roberts, First of all, I am far from a liberal. I am a family member of a person in treatment, a person with 630 days substance free. I’m forced to drive 4 hours at a minimum every week to support my loved one in his quest to stay clean due to the lack of residential treatment in this area.
Secondly, you already have drug addicts in your neighborhood, you just turn a blind eye to them since you appear to feel their existence is of no value and since they aren’t in a labeled location advertising their struggle, it’s easy to do.
These are people, humans, who love and are loved. They are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. They are blue-collar workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, veterans.
They are people looking to become productive members of society again. Albion needs some of those. Look around, you’re surrounded by an area of blight, low incomes, lack of motivation, addiction and apathy.
Opinions like yours fuel the stigma of addiction and cause people to fear treatment because they feel they don’t deserve to be healthy, happy and prosperous. They fear sharing the fact that they have a disease.
Ostracizing “these” people creates higher crime rates, death rates, puts a drain on welfare and wreaks havoc on families and loved ones affected by this issue as they are forced to suffer in silence or bear the burden of the stigma.
Addiction does not discriminate. There is no profile of an addict. I think you’d be surprised by who you know that has been affected by this. Hopefully your glass house continues to protect your loved ones but statistics show that is surely not going to be the case until we embrace the fact that addiction is a disease – until we battle the stigma and speak up and educate people. It’s out there front and center and needs to be acknowledged.
Kindness, care and compassion may be a better option than ill will, incorrect assumptions and ignorance. Maybe the Mayor should hold a community meeting to see if there is support for a treatment facility.
They don’t need his approval, it seems they are hoping to have a positive, supportive community environment for people to heal. Maybe he should focus on the empty store fronts downtown.
Who in their right mind wants drug addicts in their neighborhood? I sure don’t. Watch the crime rate soar and property values plummet if a drug rehab facility goes in at Clover Hill in Albion.
And why is this drug addict company get to be tax exempt? Aren’t the taxpayers already being overtaxed for everything?
I live within site of this property on Allen Road. My wife and I, along with several other people living in this area of Albion, walk along the local roads and streets. Just what this good residential area needs is a drug habitat.
Why doesn’t this drug addict company take over one of the many prisons that have closed? I’m sure our wonderful, worthless governor could help them buy one.
Can’t wait to hear the liberals’ comments on this one.
Dominion Voting System filed court papers against Fox News Network. In the papers filed, Dominion provided internal memos and communications of Fox employees from the top of management to the producers and hosts of shows demonstrating that they were spreading and endorsing misleading and false statements, i.e., they lied to their audience.
Fox claims that Dominion “mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”
However, Fox has not provided any evidence to back up these claims while Dominion has provided troves of documents supporting their claims. The court papers make it abundantly clear that Fox was deliberately and reckless lying. They knew it and they kept lying.
To be clear, what Fox did (and still does) is not provide a conservative-bias view of events. They reported on events that they knew did not happen; they lied.
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and others at Fox knew what they were telling their audience was false; that it was propaganda.
They knew and they still reported the lies. When Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich fact-checked a tweet by Mr. Trump, Mr. Carlson told Mr. Hannity to try to get her fired. Lying for profit apparently is Fox’s business model.
Why does Fox lie? The Dominion court filing indicates that Fox lied because they were afraid they were losing viewing market to competitors. Fox lied (and still lies) for profit.
What is the effect of their lies and propaganda? Their lies were designed to undermine faith in our election integrity, in our democratic institutions and in democracy itself. Fundamentally, the effect was to undermine our democracy.
Think about that, Fox is OK with discrediting our democracy. Beyond insulting and disrespecting their viewers, I question the patriotism of Fox. At any rate, what Fox does, is definitely not news. It is conspiracy theories and lies.
Photos by Tom Rivers: Nadine Hanlon, the Orleans County clerk, administers the oath of office on Jan. 5, 2022 to the current seven county legislators. They include, from left: Bill Eick, Ed Morgan, Lynne Johnson, Don Allport, Fred Miller, John Fitzak and Skip Draper.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 February 2023 at 11:02 am
The Orleans County Legislature will vote today to do a once-every-10-year tweaking of the four legislative districts.
There won’t be any major shakeups. The Legislature still plans to keep three at-large districts which are elected countywide.
The plan calls for keeping the four legislative districts which are each about 10,000 people. There is some slight shifting to get the four legislative districts within a variance of 5 percent. Some tweaking is needed because the population variance would be an 11.7 percent deviation without changes. That is too much to be legal. (The threshold used to be 10 percent but has been lowered to 5 percent.)
The Legislature started in 1980 following a legal challenge against the previous Board of Supervisors and the principle of “one person, one vote” – that legislators represent districts that are apportioned equally.
The 10 town supervisors used to lead the county government. Some counties still do that, including 2 GLOW counties – Wyoming and Livingston. The towns vary in size so those counties used a weighted-voting system to meet the “one person, one vote” doctrine.
I think it was a good move for the County Legislature to move away from the Board of Supervisors back in 1980. The town supervisors have their hands full leading their towns. It also didn’t seem right to have the county run by the 10 town supervisors and no mayors from the villages.
However, the Legislature has continued to be “town centric” with six of the seven legislators coming from previous roles with town government, either as town supervisors, town councilman, town highway superintendent or a town book keeper. Only Fred Miller, a former Albion village trustee, joined the Legislature after serving on a Village Board.
Miller is also the lone Democrat on the Legislature. The Orleans County Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court, seeking to do away with the at-large positions and seven districts of the same size. Democrats say the current system doesn’t meet the “one person, one vote” standard and also discourages competition, giving Republicans a near-guaranteed victory with the countywide positions. Republicans have a 2-to-1 enrollment advantage in the county.
A redistricting proposal for the County Legislature tweaks the boundaries for the four legislative districts.
Republicans now and back when the Legislature was formed see the at-large as an advantage for residents – that they get to vote for a district legislator and three countywide positions. They actually get to pick a majority of the Legislature. Democrats argue the current system staves off any challengers. In the last election in November 2021, all seven legislators were unopposed.
I’d like to present a different reason for redistricting: We need strong village voices on the Legislature.
The four villages – Albion, Holley, Lyndonville and Medina – account for 14,209 people or 35.2 percent of the county’s total, yet they don’t have much influence on the Legislature.
The villages face big challenges with high poverty rates, vacant homes, shrinking populations, and sky-high tax rates. But those challenges seldom come up in public debate at the county level. A culvert in need of attention in an out-of-the-way spot in the country consumes more passion and money from the current Legislature. They seem to think the villages issues are solely on the villages to resolve.
The Legislature should be redistricted and the villages of Albion and Medina should have their own representative on the body.
The county has 40,343 people, according to the 2020 Census. If that is divided by 7, each district should have 5,763 people. That happens to be very close to the size of the Village of Albion at 5,637 people and the Village of Medina at 6,047 people. If we had two village reps out of seven positions, that would account of 28.6 percent of the Legislature, close to the percentage of village population among the 40,343 total.
The current Legislature hasn’t given the villages (and towns) any more of the sales tax since 2001. Back then, the local sales tax was about $10 million for the year. Last year it totaled $22.5 million.
The county shares $1,366,671 in sales tax with the 10 towns and four villages – $378,777 to the four villages and $987,894 to the towns in 2023.
If the Legislature hadn’t frozen the formula, all the municipalities would have more than doubled their sales tax revenue since 2001.
The Legislature sees the county’s needs – upgraded buildings, roads and infrastructure repair – as top priorities deserving of the full amount of the sales tax increase since 2001. Yet, the village and town needs are seen as less important to the Legislature.
That seven-member body is painfully aloof to the rising tax rates at village level, among the highest in the Finger Lakes region. Those taxes are crushing to the residents, especially younger families and senior citizens. Those rates discourage investment in the villages, and these are the prime spots for businesses which need the village water and sewer services – and their population centers.
The County Legislature seems to cast blame on the villages for their state of affairs, and don’t see the Legislature’s duplicity in driving up the tax rates by hoarding the local sales tax.
Village reps from Medina and Albion would make noise about this situation, rather than the current finger pointing that the village leaders get from the county.
The Village of Albion completed a spray park in June 2021 that has been a big draw for the community. It was part of an $800,000 upgrade at the park on Route 31. The local villages work on quality-of-life issues and essential services despite no increase in the local sales tax since 2001.
If the county agrees to village districts in Albion and Medina, how else should the Legislature look?
With districts about 5,500 to 6,000 people, I would suggest the outside-village portions of Shelby and Ridgeway be in the same district. Together the two towns have 11,505 people. Take out the Village of Medina, and the remainder of those two towns have 5,458 people.
It makes sense to me to have Yates and Carlton in the same district. They are both rural towns along the lake, with many Amish and Mennonite businesses. Together they have 5,402 people.
The towns of Albion and Gaines also should be together. Together they have 10,865 people. Take out the village’s population of 5,637 and the two towns have 5,228 people.
The last two districts aren’t so clear cut. I think it makes sense to have Barre and Clarendon together. They are southern towns in the county, with muckland and wide open spaces. Together they have 5,158 people. I think it makes sense to include about 700 people in the southern part of Murray in this district. About 700 also should be taken from Murray and put in the Albion and Gaines district to bring that one closer to the average.
The last district would have Kendall and the rest of Murray. Kendall has 2,617 people. Murray has 4,796 residents. That’s 7,413 together. But if 1,400 are subtracted (to be included in the Barre-Clarendon district and the Albion-Gaines district) that would put the rest of Murray and Kendall at 6,013.
The county could utilize weighted voting to get the seven districts even closer.
The Legislature will vote at 4:30 p.m. today on its plan to keep the four districts and three at-large. It might not look at redistricting again for about 10 years.
If the redistricting plan passes today, I would encourage the Legislature to look again at having seven districts, and do it in about a year with public hearings around the county. Waiting 10 years is too long for our population and business centers in the village to go without strong advocates on the Legislature.
The Court has unsealed most of the enormous tranche of text from major Fox hosts which prove they intentionally lied – and still lie – about election theft in the 2000 election. (Click here to see the court documents.)
They knowingly lied and pushed right-wing propaganda to divide and conquer rather than investigate matters and report their findings. (And it’s all in writing!) Their goal is to keep viewership up and not lose ground competitors like Newsmax.
Fox claims the First Amendment protects and permits the corporation and on-air personalities to lie. But, you and I know that intentionally lying is evil – protected or not.
This puts in a world where newscasters and politicians either wear white hats trying to build a better future or black hats with no concern for truth and our well being. There is no middle ground where honorable people can meet.
Seeing this in writing creates a moment where we all can quietly consult our collective conscience.
Closing down the polling site at Town Hall on West Avenue in Ridgeway would be a mistake and would decrease the amount of voters who would come out to vote.
The reality is that there are voters who do not drive or do not have cars. When we are time blocking nearly every portion of our life’s schedule, there are also people who simply cannot squeeze in the extra 10-20 minutes it would take to get back and forth to the firehall location.
Of all the appalling amounts of money our levels of government waste or trivialise (yes, even our local ones), what is $1,750 in the budget in order to ensure more voters come out to exercise an important amendment?
March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and many of us will remember recent news of those who have died from this disease, including actors Chadwick Boseman and Kirstie Alley, and soccer great, Pelé.
But the Cancer Services Program (CSP) of GOWN wants to remind you of different news about colorectal cancer: getting screened can help you survive this disease or even prevent it.
Colorectal screening tests can alert health care providers that precancerous growths, called polyps, may be forming. These polyps can be removed before they turn into cancer. Regular screening for colorectal cancer can help find it early when it may be easier to treat. Colorectal cancer has a 91% survival rate when found early.
Screening for colorectal cancer begins at age 45. If you are age 45 or older, talk to your health care provider about getting screened. If you do not have a health care provider or health insurance, the CSP is ready to help. We offer free colorectal cancer screening to uninsured people ages 45 and older and can connect you to a health care provider if needed.
Screening for colorectal cancer can be done at home and it’s easy! The CSP uses a stool-based screening test that gets mailed to a lab. We will pay for a follow-up colonoscopy if the test comes back abnormal. If cancer treatment is needed, we help our clients enroll in the Medicaid Cancer Treatment Program.
The CSP can help you get your colorectal cancer screening. Don’t wait. Call us at 716-278-4898.
Wendy Armstrong
Program Coordinator of Cancer Services Program of Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming and Niagara Counties
I agree wholeheartedly with the description of the jail in an editorial by Tom Rivers: “County leaders put a giant turd among our best buildings” in 1970.
That building completely violates all the traditional patterning and proportional systems employed by all its pre-existing neighbors. The delicately detailed vocabulary, vertically oriented, archetypal classical tri-part base-middle-top arrangement of the buildings of, and around Courthouse Square, are disgraced with the brutality of the detail-less, horizontally oriented, unsympathetic brutalist concrete bunker.
Obviously, the jail looks like a jail, but its massing and scale intimidates, instead of enhances the Square.
I’m afraid that the suggestion of disguising the jail with landscaping or murals is just putting lipstick on a turd. The only way to fix that relationship is to tear it down and rebuild it (possibly elsewhere), or do a serious façade make over that breaks up the long low massing into architectural components that can be re-oriented vertically and with adding appropriate details more reflective of a civilized society.
Incarceration was originally understood as a “re-boot” in re-civilizing those who strayed from being civil. Putting those people in a brutalist bunker like animals in a cage just reaffirms uncivilized behavior.
I’m not saying that prisoners should be housed in a country club setting, but that the outside of the building should represent positive civic ideals.
David Strabel
Brockport
(Mr. Strabel, a Clarendon native, is an architect.)
Photo by Tom Rivers: The Orleans County Jail sits at the corner of Platt Street and East Park Street in the historic Courthouse Square of Albion.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 9 February 2023 at 3:58 pm
Flowers, murals would help soften blighting effect from jail
ALBION – What were they thinking? In 1970 the leaders of the county government put up perhaps the most unsightly building in these parts, and they put it in the heart of the Courthouse Square – some of our best real estate.
The Orleans County Jail, a concrete monstrosity, sits on the Square with the County Courthouse, the Clerks’ Building, seven churches, the U.S. Post Office, the former Swan Library and other impressive sites. The Courthouse Square with its 34 buildings is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Courthouse Square represents the best of the community’s creativity, wealth and ambition in the 1850s to early 1900s. We were a community daring to dream big back then. For example, the Presbyterian Church, with a steeple reaching 175 feet high, is the tallest building in the county. It was built in 1874.
This photo from a drone was taken in February 2017 by Elliott Neidert. It shows some of the Courthouse Square, including the county jail in the lower left.
But, about 100 years later, the county leaders put a giant turd among our best buildings. No effort was made to fit in with the other neighboring structures. We didn’t need an opulent jail. But the county couldn’t have missed the mark more with this building. They put a blight on the landscape with a building that resembles a big boring box.
The Courthouse Square is an amazing achievement by the residents in the 19th Century. Buildings constructed with flourishes – columns, arches, even a dome. There are 43 Tiffany stained-glass windows at one church and a large rose window at another facing Main Street. The folks back then didn’t do the cheapest thing or most cost-effective possible. And they didn’t build with a “sameness” that is so typical in small towns and suburbs today.
Photo from Orleans County Department of History: The previous county jail was built in 1903 out of Medina Sandstone and was demolished for a new jail in 1970.
The jail was done in an architectural style dismissively called “brutalism” by former County Historian Bill Lattin.
In retrospect, the county leaders would have better served the community by keeping the jail built in 1903 from Medina Sandstone. It could have been repurposed as an administrative office for the Sheriff’s Department, or other county offices. The new ugly jail could have been built elsewhere in Albion – away from the masses.
Yes, it is terrible. But what can we do to make it better, to give something back to the Courthouse Square, to not be such a scourge?
I would suggest at the minimum some landscaping with flowers, bushes, shrubs or small trees on front side of the building facing Platt Street, especially on the north half closer to State Street. The other half of the building closer to Park Street has a few small trees, but that side could use an uplift as well. I would mobilize the master gardeners and have them work some of their magic.
I’m a big fan of public art and I think murals would make a dramatic difference on this building. There are long walls of concrete on the first floor of the building. Two long murals on each side would make the site far less depressing and soul-crushing. Or it might be better to have four or five smaller murals rather than two long ones.
Photo by Tom Rivers: These fruit trees are in blossom in the spring of 2018 at Watt Farms in Albion. A mural of an orchard in bloom would enliven the exterior of the county jail.
There could be an Erie Canal theme on the one side. I would suggest a tugboat with a lift bridge in the background. The other long mural could be an agricultural scene. You can’t go wrong showing fruit trees in blossom. The murals would highlight part of the Albion landscape.
The county should seek proposals from the artist community. They may have better ideas on how to make the building better blend in with a historic district and not stick out like such a sore thumb.
The county will officially be 200 years old in 2025. These murals could be part of a bicentennial celebration.
The residents from more than a century ago embraced creativity and wanted the buildings to inspire the community. It’s not too late for the jail to give off some positivity.
In a recent interview with Newsmax, (1/30/23), Claudia Tenney complained that raising the debt limit is driving inflation. I am just dumbstruck at the ignorance of this statement.
Raising the debt limit does not authorize any new spending; it simply allows the government to pay its obligations.
Both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the national debt. In fact about $7.8 trillion of the $31.4 trillion debt that now must be paid, or 24.8% of the debt, came from the Trump administration. Raising the debt ceiling is an obligation and is not negotiable. Defaulting on the debt could result in global economic catastrophe.
The time to work on the U.S. debt is during the budget process. That is when spending and taxing are negotiated. The Biden administration has already slowed the increase in the national debt.
From the last year of the Trump administration the deficit grew by $2.6 trillion dollars, and the first year of the Biden administration the gap was only $1.4 trillion. Admittedly, this is still too large.
One of the ways to close the debt is to tax the wealthy and large corporations – that is why the Biden administration has hired more IRS agents. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that hiring more agents will bring in $200 billion over the next ten years.
One analysis showed that corporations like Amazon, Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, and JP Morgan-Chase paid less than 10% tax rate in 2021 despite record profits.
Ms. Tenney is gaslighting her constituents. If she was serious about the national debt she would be honest about the debt ceiling and ways of reducing it instead of making ridiculous nonsense comments.
Hats off to editor Tom Rivers for his February 3 editorial and ideas on celebrating Orleans County’s lift bridges.
We in Brockport, could not agree more about the iconic value of our two lift bridges and their greater 100+ years significance to our community.
Brockport is twinned with Albion on lift bridge rehabilitation, being part of the same contract with Crane-Hogan. Rehabilitation of our Main Street lift bridge will begin in April 2023.
Our public meeting with the DOT to announce the April closure will take place on February 9 at Brockport’s Seymour Library from 6 to 8 p.m. Leading up to the bridge closure in Albion Brockport and Albion have shared information about events, traffic, and marketing and many of us in Brockport watched the live feed of the lifting of the trusses off the Albion bridge.
This year, Brockport will be celebrating our bicentennial when the canal ended in Brockport for two years as it was being completed to Buffalo. We’ll acknowledge our 200 years on the Erie Canal at our annual canal opening celebration, Low Bridge High Water, on Saturday June 10th with kayaking, music, food, and other family friendly activities.
On that occasion we will also be dedicating an historic community museum panel commemorating the Park Avenue lift bridge which was completed in 1913 and is one of the very few lift bridges on the canal still operating with all its historic parts. A similar panel for the Main Street lift bridge will be dedicated in 2024 when the bridge reopens.
Editor Rivers’ lift bridge festival is a terrific idea. Why not expand it into neighboring Monroe County to include Brockport, Adams Basin, Spencerport, and Fairport? Boaters would love it!
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 3 February 2023 at 12:29 pm
“Welcome to Orleans County – the lift bridge capital of the Erie Canal!”
Photos by Tom Rivers: The Main Street lift bridge in Albion is elevated in this photo from Aug. 8, 2022, making room for boaters to pass through.
Orleans County has a secret: It has the most lift bridges of any county on the canal system. We have seven out of the 16.
It’s not something you’ll see on a tourism brochure, a welcome sign or on a local municipal website.
Around here, we treat the lift bridges with annoyance. We don’t like to wait a few minutes when a boat passes by and the 200,000-pound plus bridges rise to give the boaters some room.
The lift bridges are a marvel. I’ve seen visitors drop what they are doing and get very excited when they have been in downtown Albion and the bridge seems to let out a groan and start its elevation. It’s a sight that amazes out-of-towners.
The lift bridges were all built in the 1910s with the canal’s widening and expansion. The downtown districts and hamlets were already built up near the bridges. It wasn’t reasonable to knock down the commercial buildings close by to push back the bridge approaches and make gradual inclines for a stationary high bridge like out in the country.
So we got seven vertical lift bridges – in Medina, Knowlesville, Eagle Harbor, two in Albion, Hulberton and Holley.
The 16 lift bridges on the Erie Canal are all on the western side. Besides the seven in Orleans, there are four in Niagara County and five in Monroe.
The four in Niagara include two in Lockport, and one in both Gasport and Middleport. The five in Monroe include two in Brockport, with others in Adams Basin, Spencerport and Fairport.
The Tugboat Syracuse carries engineers and Canal Corp. officials in this photo from Sept. 14, 2016 during an inspection of the canal system in Orleans County today. The tug is approaching the Ingersoll Street lift bridge in Albion.
We have the most of these bridges and that distinction should be proclaimed: “Welcome to Orleans County – the lift bridge capital of the Erie Canal!”
Orleans County will be 200 years old in 2025. That year also marks the 200th anniversary of the completion of the original 363-mile long Erie Canal.
Orleans County doesn’t need to wait two years to celebrate the lift bridges. The county should dip into some of its tourism money to put up engaging signs and craft a campaign about these bridges.
The entire community should rally around them as a source of pride.
Next year a massive rehabilitation of the Main Street lift bridge in Albion will be complete. The state Department of Transportation is spending about $15 million to give the bridge a major overhaul. That will ensure the bridge stays functional for decades to come. The state about 15 years ago finished a similar rehab of the Ingersoll Street lift bridge in Albion, costing several million dollars.
The state is showing a commitment to keep these bridges in good shape. There are times when some of them are shut down a few days or weeks for a repair. But the bridges get the job done, year after year – more than a century after they were originally constructed.
Photo by Philip Kamrass, New York Power Authority: Fairport lights up its lift bridge and celebrates the span as an iconic landmark in the community.
The Village of Fairport seems to be the only canal town that takes pride in having a lift bridge. The village in Monroe County proudly displays the lift bridge on signs and in promotional materials about the community.
It lights up the bridge for major events. It had a big celebration in 2014 when the bridge was 100 years old. There were a series of events that summer to celebrate the centennial. Fairport rededicated the bridge in a ceremony on Aug. 15, 2014, and re-enacted the first motorized vehicle riding across the bridge. Fairport had a Model T do it for the ceremony.
The community hosts a bash every year to kick off the canal boating season. You can feel their pride.
Not so much around here when it comes to the canal, the lift bridges and tugboats that seem so obvious to celebrate and build an identity around.
In Iowa, the Bridges of Madison County are deeply valued and part of the community fabric. Those historic covered bridges fill that community’s tourism promotions and were the backdrop of a film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep in 1995.
Madison County used to have 19 of the covered bridges, but only six remain today. They are deeply treasured by local residents. The community has a covered bridge festival each year. This year it will be Oct. 14-15. (Click here to see more from the Madison County Chamber & Welcome Center.)
Ashtabula County in Ohio has a line of merchandise highlighting its covered bridges, including these hoodies. (Images from Ashtabula County Bridge Festival.)
Ashtabula County in Ohio may be the most enthusiastic community when it comes to loving and embracing their historic bridges.
Ashtabula County has had a covered bridge festival every year going back about 40 years. The community has activities at 19 different covered bridges on an October weekend. Service clubs, businesses, churches and other groups adopt a bridge for the weekend and host events.
Some of the activities include a troll costume contest, Lego covered bridge contest, horse-drawn wagon rides and lemonade stands run by Girl Scouts. Click here to see more about their festival.
The community sells and displays numerous covered bridge merchandise and signage, with different covered bridges featured on shirts, ornaments, blankets, totes and bags, hoodies, cards and other items.
The local lift bridges have paths for pedestrians, including the one on Main Street in Albion. This is an older photo because the bridge has currently been removed for a massive rehabilitation.
You could see an Orleans County Lift Bridge Festival on a weekend, perhaps in late August while there are still boaters using the canal before the end of the summer.
We could have activities at the seven bridges. I could see a 5K race or walk perhaps from the Eagle Harbor to Albion bridge, or from Hulberton to Holley. There could a 10-mile race for more ambitious runners going from Medina to Albion, or Albion to Holley. There could even be a Lift Bridge marathon for 26.2 miles that would go just about from one end of the county to the other.
I think most people would like to see the bridges in action. Every half hour there should be a commitment to have the bridges go up in lower-trafficked areas such as Hulberton, Eagle Harbor and maybe Ingersoll Street in Albion once the Main Street bridge is open. That way people would be guaranteed to see the bridges in action and not have to try to time it to boating traffic.
We could develop some merchandise and signage to give the lift bridges some limelight.
The festival could culminate with fireworks near one of the bridges.
A lift bridge festival would give the service clubs, fire departments, municipalities and residents in the canal communities an opportunity to work together on a fun-filled weekend for the community, while also welcoming visitors to learn about and experience our lift bridge treasures.
Bill Lattin, the retired Orleans County historian, spoke during the first Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the Medina Sandstone Society back in 2013. Lattin said then that Orleans County has so many ornate Medina Sandstone churches, houses, monuments and other structures for such a small community. Yet, the locals don’t pay much notice to what Lattin called “the extraordinary ordinary.” He could say the same about the lift bridges.
Fireworks are reflected in the Erie Canal by the lift bridge in Holley at about 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 2, 2018. The 20-minute fireworks show was an explosive conclusion to the June Fest celebration in Holley.
Orleans County officials have proposed another half-hearted redistricting plan whose sole purpose appears to be to preserve one-party rule and discourage competition.
The current model, with three at-large representatives, dilutes voter participation and increases the costs for citizens that may want to run for office.
The current system was the result of a referendum held in 1979, and a State Supreme Court Judge created the at-large model (four equal districts and three candidates that run in overlapping districts countywide) after a decade of legal challenges to the former governmental body, the Board of Supervisors. The at-large model was never intended as a permanent solution.
As far back as 1980, people that were advocating for the dissolution of the board of supervisors proposed a one-person one-vote solution that included dividing the county into seven equal electoral districts.
Orleans is the only county in the state that uses an at-large model, and since its inception, the result has been one-party dominance at the county level. That is the only justification for keeping it in place
The proposed reapportionment plan is similar to the approach the county took ten years ago when they were forced to comply with the redistricting law. They did as little as possible and waited until the last possible moment to propose changes so they could create a false sense of urgency. This proposed plan, like the last one implemented ten years ago, doesn’t pass the smell test, and it should not pass legal muster either.
County governments are supposed to redistrict six months after census figures are released, and again, the county ignored the law until the threat of litigation. The census data was released in April of 2021, meaning it will be almost two years since the county had to implement a plan.
The law states: “Districts shall not be drawn to discourage competition or to favor or disfavor incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties.”
In Orleans County there are 22,320 active voters, 13,365 of them are registered Republicans, which is approximately 60%. Over the last five elections for county legislature, there have been 35 contests, with the minority party winning one contested election. That is 3%.
Weighing them against state regulations also exposes other problems with the current system:
“Districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minority groups to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”
Regarding racial and minority groups, the legislature has not had an African American on the legislature in a decade, they have one woman and zero minority representation.
In the Village of Albion, two out of five candidates were endorsed by Democrats, and two minority groups are represented on the Village Board. That strongly suggests that a smaller district would not only encourage minority participation, but it may also even result in the county legislature looking more like the county it represents.
The At-Large model is long outdated and usually does not stand up to legal scrutiny. As far back as 1986, in Dillard v. Crenshaw, a federal district court found that hundreds of Alabama districts intentionally employed an At-Large electoral model to discriminate against minority voters. Because of that litigation, 176 jurisdictions settled and adopted some form of district voting. Most municipalities in Alabama have abandoned the dilutive At-Large voting model decades ago.
Perhaps most importantly, the intent of voters back in 1980 was to have better representation for all the residents of the county, and yet we have multiple county legislators that live in the same township. How is that better for the residents of the county?
Most people probably don’t care about this issue, but hopefully, Orleans County citizens demand reform, If the county’s current proposal stands, the minority party should proceed with litigation and not back down like they did ten years ago. By allowing the system to continue, the result was another ten years of absolute control that included the ill-thought-out sale of the nursing home to financial predators.
County legislators had a clear choice, they could have corrected the mistake made in 1980, or they could propose a system that preserves their power. It’s clear which one they chose.
Thom Jennings
Oakfield
(Jennings, a former Albion resident, previously ran for County Legislature.)
I can not help but wonder why people are not more involved in politics. They seem to be oblivious to politics but complain about diminishing rights and inflation.
Politics affect our entire lives, from the environment to nuclear war. Two big things in the news today. Yesterday was the first Orleans County Legislature meeting of 2023 and I think I was the only “Joe Public” who attended. Covid did mess up meetings and all our lives but Orleans County Legislature meetings are back open to the public.
Resolution #23 at the meeting was a contract agreement between the Orleans County Board of Elections and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation, which got approved. Through my research I believe electronic machines and the internet have no business in our elections.
Politics are the most important duty of the citizen. It is you, who through your vote, causes how your life and your neighbors’ lives will be.
I personally believe in the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, created by the people for the people. Get involved.
I feel the push to phase out gas stoves with new construction is a knee-jerk move and should not happen. While I am concerned about global warming and health, I feel that the benefits of a ban are far outweighed by the usefulness of gas stoves.
Natural gas and propane have far less impact that other fossil fuels and are more cost effective than electricity at this point in time.
I would like to offer a link (click here) to Senator Ort’s petition regarding gas stoves.
